Dreamland

It did. With a vengeance.

Jeff caught the shadows of laser-guided missiles closing in on the SAM sites as he began to turn Hawk One south. The Libyans hadn’t had a chance to launch.

Secondaries.

Turbulence.

A lot of shit down there.

He was between the two planes, spreading out over the coast. Fuel good, heavy air, almost stormy. His controls felt a little sloppy. Maybe it was the computer reacting to the wide spectrum of ECMs.

He could handle it. Zen nudged the stick up. The signal bar on Hawk One flittered into the red area, got strong again.

“Jeff, they’re asking for another pass on the bunker,” said Je

Zen told the computer to bring Hawk One closer. Then he pulled Hawk Two back in the other direction, away from Raven under a heavy cloud of black smoke and exploding tracers. Helos were coming in from the northeast; he saw a pair of Sea Cobra attack helos letting loose with rockets on an official building a half mile from the bunker. Jeff hunkered down, pushing his head into the windscreen, backing off the throttle, slowing down for the longest possible look at the bunker.

The east side of the facility was defended only by an armored car. He tilted his wing and banked off, the assault helicopters right behind.

He circled, watching them land. Raven was almost overhead now, begi

A second Seahawk came in over the back entrance of the bunker. An armored car moved toward them.

Zen was nearly lined up for a shot with the UM/F’s ca

“They’re in!” shouted someone over the command circuit.

“How’s the trial going now?” said Brea

“It’s still going,” said the weapons officer, surprised.

Zen saw the main entrance to the bunker implode as he began a fresh circuit. Three satellite dishes collapsed with the dust as the front half of the football-field-sized upper building collapsed.

Had he said the trial was still going?

He pushed Hawk Two into a rolling dive to reverse course and overfly the bunker again.

“Missiles have launched! Flak batteries are shooting unguided in grid A-1. Evasive maneuvers,” said the weapons officer.

“Losing control co

“Nancy, we need to double back,” said Zen as he struggled to put Hawk Two’s camera on the bunker complex. He jerked his right hand instead of his left, cursed at the infinitesimal delay.

“We have SA-2’s in the air,” said Cheshire calmly. “Jam them.”

“We are. But we’re not taking any u

Zen felt himself being pushed sideways as the Mega-fortress beamed the SAM site’s pulse-Doppler radar. He lost Hawk Two and had to throw One’s throttle to the firewall to try to keep up with the EB-52. The Libyans had launched no less than twelve of the high-altitude surface-to-air missiles at them. While the Megafortress’s ECMs had no trouble thwarting their radars, there were an awful lot of them in the air; just dodging the debris was a chore.

Sixty 57mm antiaircraft guns were filling the air below the missiles with lead and cordite. The flak rose in plumes, hot coals for Raven and the UM/Fs to dance across.

The computer brought Hawk Two into a wide arc south of Raven as Jeff flew Hawk One to the east, cutting back on an intercept as an SA-2 exploded overhead. Sweat poured from Jeff’s neck and back as the small UM/F began to jitter up and down, buffeted by a second explosion he hadn’t seen or anticipated. He gu

“SEAL teams have secured the perimeter,” reported Cascade. “SEAL teams are inside, encountering only token resistance.”

“The prisoners aren’t in the bunker,” said Zen. He was on the interphone; only the others aboard Raven could hear him. “Where was that encrypted video transmission?”

“About fifty miles, south by southeast,” said the weapons officer.

“Jeff?”

“Bree, get us back there. That’s where Smith and the others must be.”

“No offense, Major, but I’m flying this plane,” said Cheshire.

“I’m sorry, Nancy. The bunker is a bluff. The trial broadcast didn’t stop when the satellites were hit.”

“He’s right,” said the weapons officer.

“Why do you think it’s coming from that site and not somewhere else in Tripoli?”

“It’s just a guess. Intuition,” said Jeff. The computer noted that Hawk Two was now “fully communicative,” and he acknowledged, though leaving it under the computer’s command in the trail position. “The Navy’s covering Tripoli. Let’s go.”

“Jeff, you’re talking about deviating from our flight plan based on a hunch,” said Cheshire.

“I trust hunches,” said Brea

Over the Mediterranean

24 October, 1050 local

JED SAT BACK AT THE JSTARS CONSOLE WHILE MS. O’Day left her desk in the White House Situation Room to take another call. The attack on Tripoli, pla

It helped that they trusted neither the Iranians nor the Libyans. It also helped that America was demonstrating how easy it was to obliterate nearly a billion dollars’ worth of military equipment.

Now if they could only complete the rescue.

“Jed, are you still there?” asked Ms. O’Day, coming back on the line.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sitting back up at the console. The major was waving at him—he was needed on the other lines, where he was helping keep the SWAT team and Raven in contact with each other.

“Do they have our men?”

“Not yet,” he told her.

“When?”

“Maybe soon,” he said. The major was waving violently. “Ms. O’Day, I’m sorry, I have to go,” he said, cutting her off by switching the simple twist knob that controlled the circuit input on the panel in front of him.

Felt weird. He’d never cut off his boss before.

What if the President had been listening in?

“Cascade, this is Big Bear. Can you get Raven to give us a feed on the base area?”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” he said. He looked around for the major, but he’d gone off to help someone else. “Hang on.”

The screen before him was a live situation map. It showed Raven heading south, away from Tripoli.

Shit. Why the hell were they doing that? And where the hell were their prisoners?

Obviously not in the bunker, if Big Bear was looking for a feed.

“Bear, I’m going to have to get back to you,” said Jed, twisting into the Megafortress’s frequency.

Libya24

October, 0955 local

EVEN WITH THE STEINER GLASSES, THEY WERE MUCH too far from the action to see anything, not even smoke on the horizon, though all of the Whiplash members fixed their eyes in the direction of the coast. The Osprey pilot had moved the rotorcraft to the foot of the hill and was monitoring the raid via the SATCOM circuit back to the JSTARS command plane. He’d alerted Da